Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Leonardo DiCaprio - Rolling Stone interview

Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

"DiCaprio got his start on TV’s Growing Pains, earned an Oscar nod for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and then achieved titanic stardom in 1997 in a movie about a sinking ship. But then, instead of trading on his heartthrob looks, he leveraged his box-office muscle to work with A-list directors including Danny Boyle, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Sam Mendes, and now Christopher Nolan. For those of you counting at home, Inception is the third movie in a row in which DiCaprio’s crazy wife suddenly dies. Leonardo DiCaprio with Christopher Nolan filming "Inception"

DiCaprio’s career has been engineered to make audiences forget Titanic, but he has swung so far in the other direction that he has alienated the female fans who made him a star. That’s undoubtedly the idea, though that doesn’t make it a good one. He seems interested only in characters who project a certain kind of masochism, and misogyny. His best film of the decade, The Departed, featured a nearly all-male cast. He was nimble in Catch Me if You Can, but that was in 2002, the last time we saw DiCaprio in a comedy.Reese Witherspoon on the set of "Water for Elephants"

That’s not to say that DiCaprio should stay away from dramas, but he would help himself tremendously if he lightened up, costarred with an actress like Reese Witherspoon, or at least did a movie where his wife survives until the closing credits. What’s worse: DiCaprio has spawned a whole generation of actors who are so serious they’re making movies only for people on antidepressants. Efron dropped out of the Footloose remake to do Charlie St. Cloud, about a guy who talks to the ghost of his dead brother. Pattinson’s first post-Twilight movie, Remember Me, took place on September 11. Daniel Radcliffe took a break from Harry Potter to get naked with horses in Equus, and Shia LaBeouf, Tobey Maguire, and Jake Gyllenhaal are in some kind of mega–scowling contest.Jake Gyllenhaal as ex-convict Tommy in Brothers (2009)

Taylor Lautner on the set of "Abduction" (2011)

That leaves us with one heartthrob who isn’t afraid to play to his strengths, and his abs. Can Taylor Lautner actually act? The jury is still out, but he’s getting $7.5 million per movie. As the rare Hollywood hunk who isn’t afraid to smile, he deserves it". Source: www.newsweek.com

Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover of Rolling Stone August 2010

On growing up:"I was essentially a dwarf with the biggest mouth in the world. I would talk back to anyone and be up for any fight, and when you tell a kid that's three years older than you to shove it, you're going to get your ass beat…I was a real punk, there's no question about it."On partying in the pre-TMZ age:"I got to be wild and nuts, and I didn't suffer as much as people do now, where they have to play it so safe that they ruin their credibility. I didn't care what anyone thought.... It was also about avoiding the tornado of chaos, of potential downfall. It was, 'Wow, how lucky are we to not have hung out with that crowd or done those things?' My two main competitors in the beginning, the blond-haired kids I went to audition with, one hung himself and the other died of a heroin overdose... Leonardo DiCaprio as Jim Carroll in "The Basketball Diaries" (1995)

I was never into drugs at all. There aren’t stories of me in a pool of my own vomit in a hotel room on the Hollywood Strip."On dating:"I had better success meeting girls before Titanic. My interactions with them didn't have all the stigma behind it, not to mention there wasn’t a perception of her talking to me for only one reason." Source: www.rollingstone.com